From The Gardens at Giving Tree Monday Blog Number One

Here it is! A new, beautiful Monday, beginning a new and beautiful week. I find it is always a helpful thing to start out, any new thing.. with almost too much positivity and optimism.. That way, if life or circumstance should happen to chip away at some of it, there is plenty left to make it through :)

It is also the first Monday of our 'every Monday' blogging mission! A few promises, right out of the gate..
We promise to have a new blog, every Monday! And we promise they will be diverse, curious little things, and not all written by Rachel! Courtney and Laura are on tap, and who knows, if we can get her to sit still for 5 minutes, maybe even Judith!

Anyway, this week, it's me :). I was both excited and torn over what to write about this gorgeous morning. I had two primary inspirations. The first sprung up in me yesterday, sometime around 4 pm, in the middle of our bamboo forest. There is a point, as everyone knows, when 'working' that you turn some proverbial corner. It is often true, the hardest part is starting, and then, maintaining....but once the work is truly underway, often, something happens, and a new energy fills you, and you feel tireless and unending. This happened, just about the same time the rain, which had been intermittent all day, started up again, the strongest of the day so far. But I had turned that corner, and there was no stopping. Beazie, as usual, decided I was crazy and went to take shelter on the porch. I couldn't stop. I had that 'thing' happen, that happens every year when I work on the property. A love, and awe, for this place fills me beyond comprehension, but not beyond immense gratitude. I was thinking, about so many things yesterday, about the 2 decades of work my mom has put into this place,, about all the kind words from people that have visited here, and taken away a happy memory, a deeper thought, a peaceful moment. And I was thinking about the land itself, most especially, the bamboo forest (where I was working yesterday). Every year, the literal weight of winter (the snow, mostly) causes huge sections of the forest to be pulled down, almost to the ground. On top of this, about 75% of the bamboo dies every year, and also bends, or cracks, or falls. So the very hard work is removing all the huge, dead pieces of bamboo, clipping them, saving the stalks and clearing the rest, (often on the other side of the property) At first, inevitably, this makes me so sad, all this.. ostensible, death. But then, I see these little teeny tiny new stalks, only an inch or two out of the ground.. still purple at the tips. I also see a tree, springing back to joyous life when finally set free from 100 feet of vine that has wrapped itself around its precious trunk. I see sunlight pouring through the new spaces made in the once clouded, shrouded forest.









I think about the idea of secondary succession:

"Secondary successions are much more common than primary successions, because disturbances are rarely intense enough to obliterate previous ecological influences. Most natural disturbances, such as windstorms, wildfires, and insect defoliations, are followed by ecological recovery through secondary succession. The same is true of most disturbances associated with human activities, such as the abandonment of agricultural lands, and the harvesting of forests"

Meaning, essentially that the only way the 'new' bamboo can grow and thrive, is by the older bamboo making room, letting the light in, the natural cycle of everything, played out here, in this micro version.

All of this put me in mind of the whole idea of 'letting go'... how difficult, but essential, it is, for anything 'new' to happen.

There is a line from Rilke:
"We need, in love, to practice only this: letting each other go. For holding on comes easily; we do not need to learn it"

Both heavy, and very very 'light' stuff, from the gardens at Giving Tree!

So! That was one idea.. and ha! I guess I wrote about it already!
Good thing there is another Monday and new blog right around the corner!

I will end this early morning ramble with another great line of poetry...this one, accompanied by a very fitting picture, and also fitting, the excess of optimism that this week, despite any and all challenges, is going to be a truly blessed and glorious event!


"All is well, and all is very well." T.S. Eliot